The Influence of Local Built Environments on Social Wellbeing: a Community’s Experience with Social Isolation, Social Loneliness, and Social Belonging

Local environments play influential roles in shaping individual and population-level outcomes. Yet, most literature and public health initiatives studying the built environment emphasize its role in environmental health or physical health but fail to consider its ability to influence social wellbeing. Rooted in a social determinant of health framework, this study investigates how a community’s social wellbeing is shaped by the built environment through exploring individuals’ social relationships and social interactions, specifically regarding experiences of social isolation, social loneliness, and social belonging, and the limitations or opportunities for such interactions and connections the environment imposes. Participants were selected from three geographic neighborhood tracts representing different combinations of median income, relative environment (rural versus urban) and access to available transportation and potential sites of social interaction. Collected participant data included social isolation and social loneliness scores, perceptions regarding community context and social belonging, and demographic factors (socio-structural factors). Through ANOVA and an OLS regression, our results suggest that while local built environments influence opportunities to encourage social wellbeing, socio-structural factors, such as marital status or income, can 1) overcome barriers related to physical access or 2) create additional barriers related to social access. Rather, the intersection of the community’s built environment and socio-structural factors interact to predict social isolation or social loneliness, influence perceptions related to objective accessibility, and is a potential determinant for social wellbeing, especially for socially disadvantaged individuals or households who are unable to access opportunities or spaces outside of their community. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.